Blog Roundup

A Friday Hodgepodge

1. At New Ideal, Ben Bayer exposes the religious thinking behind a bitter controversy among atheists:

[A]theists need the courage of their convictions. The latest row over transgender ideology dramatizes this for all to see. When religious-style dogmatism infiltrates atheism itself, it's a sign of religion's pervasive influence on our culture, and thus of the need for the courage to challenge widespread conventional assumptions like the alleged virtue of humility. As Jerry Coyne himself once observed, "Atheists have been 'humble' for centuries (who was more humble than Spinoza?) and it hasn't gotten us anywhere." And Coyne now says he's "proud" to be a heretic. It's time to realize he's right, drop the pose of false humility, and proudly assert the value of the scientific truth over unscrutinized feelings for faddish totems. [footnote omitted]

Among the things I learned from the piece was an interesting bit of trivia: the origin of the current humility fad.

2. At How to Be Profitable and Moral, Jaana Woiceshyn makes "The Moral Case Against Tariffs -- and for Free Trade," in part because:

The economic arguments against tariffs are valid but don't explain why tariffs are fundamentally immoral. It is true that they lead to economic misery to individuals and businesses by increasing the cost of everything, from food to fuel to construction materials and by causing job losses. But most economists today do not examine the root causes of tariffs' negative impact from a moral perspective. They take the mixed economy for granted and don't think about international trade that could be free of government intervention.

As neglected as it is, this question is important because supporters of various political measures frequently do so on the basis of what they deem to be moral, often to the point that they will ignore the impractical outcomes of those very policies. (e.g., You don't really need an iPhone!)

The path to winning important cultural and political battles lies in identifying and taking the moral high ground.

3. At Thinking Directions, Jean Moroney explains why a "twofer" doesn't work as a goal:

If it seems like more than one benefit is involved in your goal, check to see if it's a "twofer." Can you name in one word what your deepest motivation is for pursuing it? Can you explain the different aspects of the goal in terms of that value?

Eliminating twofers is critical to your success. The more ambitious and life-changing your goal, the more important it is to ensure your goal is unified. Otherwise, it will not fulfill its purpose, which is to guide and motivate action to the achievement of the goal. There are at least two reasons for this.

For one thing, a twofer gives you no guidance in the critical moment when the two most important benefits are in conflict. It creates pressure and exacerbates conflict between the benefits. It can seem that you can't achieve one except at the expense of the other.

The other problem is at least as bad as being lost at such a time of conflict.

4. At Value for Value, Harry Binswanger points out that in many conflicts in today's political and cultural scene, neither side deserves support. Case in point? Trump vs. Harvard:

[I]n the end, I cannot support either side. Trump wants to bully and even destroy any institution that stands up to him. (I think the campaign to end certain bad things in the universities is just a pretext, just a way to get support from his MAGA people.)

But Harvard wants to destroy civilization. And it's been doing a damn good job of it, too. Some ... have rightly stressed Harvard's good work in fields other than the Humanities: medicine, physics, biochemistry. But weighing that against the further development and spreading of evil philosophy, I think Harvard, and all universities, are net destroyers not benefactors.

Indeed, Trump, as Binswanger indicates, is ultimately a product of the evil ideas belched into our culture by the likes of Harvard for much of the past 200 years.

-- CAV

Hope for Incompetence, but Row Furiously

Via X, I got wind of an excellent piece on the Abrego Garcia case by Noah Smith, "The Authoritarian Takeover Attempt Is Here".

Although it does stand on its own in terms of getting readers up to speed on the case, it is no mere rehash.

Smith does well helping readers see the implications of the contempt for due process Trump and his cronies have exhibited, and offers his current forecast of where things are headed:

This should scare you, for a number of reasons.

First, there's the obvious: Trump is going around arresting innocent people, and sending them to foreign torture-dungeons, apparently for the rest of their lives. Bloomberg reports that about 90% of these deportees had no criminal records in the U.S., and most have not been charged with any crime...

Some were arrested simply because they had (non-gang) tattoos. Others didn't even have any tattoos, and were arrested for no apparent reason.

It's not clear why the Trump administration is doing this. Perhaps it's to scare immigrants into leaving the country by making an example of a few. Perhaps it's to simply assert power, or to test the boundaries of what they can get away with. Maybe they've really convinced themselves that all of the people they arrested are gang members. Who knows. But what's clear is that this is brutal and lawless behavior -- the kind of arbitrary arrest and punishment that's common in authoritarian regimes.

The second thing that should scare you is the lawlessness. The Trump administration insists it didn't defy the Supreme Court, arguing that simply removing any barriers to Abrego Garcia's return means that they're complying with the court order to "facilitate" that return. Trump's people have also argued that the courts have no right to interfere in the executive branch's conduct of foreign policy. And on top of that, they've declared that their deal with Bukele is classified.

In practice, the administration is arguing that as soon as they arrest someone and ship them overseas, U.S. courts have no right to order their return -- ever. That means that Trump could grab you, or me, or anyone else off the street and put us on a plane to El Salvador, and then argue that no U.S. court has the right to order us back, because once we're on foreign soil it's the domain of foreign policy. If so, it means that due process and the rule of law in America are effectively dead; the President can simply do anything to anyone, for any reason.

The third reason the Abrego Garcia case should worry you is that the Trump administration probably intends to go much further. Kilmar Abrego Garcia isn't an American citizen, but Trump has stated that he wants to start sending U.S. citizens to El Salvador too. Here are three relevant clips from his meeting with Bukele... [links omitted, bold added]

In one clip, Trump shows his hand regarding the excuse of sending foreign criminals away: "Yeah that includes [Americans], you think they're a special type of people or something."

This is how he speaks of you, whose rights and lives he swore to protect as President a few weeks ago.

Smith correctly notes that this is exactly one of things the Founders enumerated in their reasons for rebelling against England, and goes on to offer his analysis of the political situation.

He closes with his best sense of how it could play out:

Trump 2.0 is still likely to struggle to get big things done, despite having a few more years to prepare. The sad spectacle of the flailing, off-again-on-again tariff announcements seems like pretty clear evidence of incompetence. Trump is more vengeful and far less constrained this time around, but he still may fail to execute the transition to authoritarianism any more effectively than he's executing the transition to autarky. He's not benign, but he's probably not invincible either.

It is upon this thin thread that we must hang our hopes for democracy. [bold added]

The time to begin fighting back in whatever way is available is now.

-- CAV

Somin on the Abrego Garcia Case

"Due process is what keeps good people out of jail, even though it occasionally spares people -- such as yourself, -- who deserve to be confused for an immigrant or a criminal and sent straight to an El Salvadoran prison by an incompetent, authoritarian regime." -- Me, to Stephen Miller

***

Ilya Somin of the Cato Institute summarizes the status of the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant illegally deported to imprisonment in El Salvador, and why you should be concerned about it.

As you may know, Abrego Garcia was rounded up and deported to El Salvador without a hearing, and the Trump Administration has since admitted the deportation was in error.

Somin's update:

When the case was remanded back to the district court, Judge Paula Xinis issued an order instructing the defendants to "take all available steps to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia to the United States as soon as possible." The government indefensibly interpreted this as merely requiring it to remove "domestic" obstacles to his return, making no effort to get the Salvadoran government to release him from prison. That makes no sense in a context where the Salvadorans had imprisoned Abrego Garcia at the behest of the US, and the Trump Administration could easily secure his release simply by demanding it. As conservative legal commentator Ed Whelan puts it: "The administration is clearly acting in bad faith ... The Supreme Court and the district court have properly given it the freedom to select the means by which it will undertake to ensure Abrego Garcia's return. The administration is abusing that freedom by doing basically nothing."

The Administration coupled this bad-faith failure to follow the Supreme Court's and district court's orders with unsubstantiated claims that Abrego Garcia was a member of the MS 13 drug gang. They have no evidence for that. And if they did, the proper course of action is to charge him with it in court, rather than deportation and imprisonment without due process. [bold added]

Somin is absolutely correct to warn:

I would add that this danger [of whisking people to foreign prisons, then disavowing responsibility] isn't limited to recent immigrants. It applies to US citizens, as well. The threat to US citizens' rights is no longer just theoretical, since the president is openly considering the possibility of deporting and imprisoning US citizens in El Salvador. [bold added]

As if this weren't bad enough, none other than the Vice President is pooh-poohing any concern about this serious threat to liberty as "leftist" pearl-clutching.

-- CAV

Updates

4-17-24: Corrected a typo.

A Trump II Silver Lining

At The Edgy Optimist, Zachary Karabell presents a "potted history" of the growth of executive power over history, and argues that this excessive power may have already peaked early in this second Trump Presidency.

Karabell sees Trump as having squandered this power -- which his predecessors used more sparingly -- to the point that Americans will be ready to cut it back down to size.

I agree that the President is squandering his power in terms of helping his country, but not necessarily in terms of consolidating his position atop our political order -- whose Constitution he he plainly sees as a bug rather than a feature.

Worse, while the bond market might well force the President to pretend to be semi-sane about tariffs, it won't slow down his attempts to acquire more power, such as by attempting to stifle dissent or relying on foreign dictators to do the dirty work of imprisoning his enemies. In the former case, he clearly plans to abuse licensing power (which he shouldn't have), and in the latter, he is being helped along in an effort to ignore a court ruling.

That said, if our Republic dodges or survives the various crises Trump seems intent on inflicting, if he doesn't get away with too much, there is hope. Karabell closes:

It remains, however, that the federal government -- and the executive branch in particular -- has grown too powerful relative to the balance that was attempted in the Constitution. The ascension of Trump should be a reminder of that, which even Republicans such as Rand Paul and Ted Cruz appear to recognize. And the past week, with a foolish and expansive use of tariff authority having backfired (for now) spectacularly, may mark the apex of that power. In fact, the Trump presidency overall might mark the beginning of the end of the imperial presidency, which has defied earlier predictions of its imminent demise. People want change, for sure, but they don't want change that they don't want. And you would be hard-pressed to find a plurality of Americans who want a more powerful government. That reality, more than the daily reality show of contemporary politics, is what will matter most to our future -- and that is comfort indeed.

The second Trump Presidency is a cartoonish but quite real exemplar of that cliche about crisis being both danger and opportunity: The Founders had recent memory of atrocities by tyrannies of all sorts to draw on as they devised a plan for their new government to be practically impossible to abuse.

To the painful extent that Trump punishes a complacent nation without completely consolidating his power, perhaps there will exist a strong- and lasting-enough appetite for limited government to sustain a dismantling of the imperial presidency.

-- CAV

Trump Is Causing a Certainty Crisis.

Trump's tariffs can't achieve any one of his stated policy goals, but they can paralyze the economy.

***

If we set aside the contradictory stated policy objectives President Trump gives for starting his trade war, we quickly find that -- in addition to being unable to defy the Law of Non-Contradiction -- tariffs also can't achieve any one of the goals.

We'll look at manufacturing, since I keep running into pertinent facts on that matter.

First, we'll set aside a biggie: The U.S. produces nearly a fifth of the world's manufactured goods, although this part of its economy is less than an eighth of GDP, and it does so with only about one tenth of its workforce.

Manufacturing is far from dead here, and had been enjoying a resurgence. But let's game out Trump's tariffs anyway.

Andrew Prokop of Vox does this in a reasonably accessible way, explaining several ways that Trump's tariffs interfere with the goal of building more factories here:

1. The supply chain problem;
2. The workforce problem;
3. The confidence problem; and
4. The currency problem.

For my money, the worst of these by far is the third, because if it isn't already cutting off the investment needed for our economy, it is close to doing so soon, in spades:

If the US president set new high tariff levels and could guarantee that they were permanent, that could be very economically damaging, but at least businesses would be able to plan accordingly. Trump's chaotic policy rollout, and its reliance on poor-quality analysis, has only deepened uncertainty about market conditions in the US in the future. And if businesses feel uncertain -- and like Trump can and will throw their business model into chaos on a whim -- they're going to delay making big new investments in US-based manufacturing. [bold added]

See also Ayn Rand on non-objective law:

When men are caught in the trap of non-objective law, when their work, future and livelihood are at the mercy of a bureaucrat's whim, when they have no way of knowing what unknown "influence" will crack down on them for which unspecified offense, fear becomes their basic motive, if they remain in the industry at all -- and compromise, conformity, staleness, dullness, the dismal grayness of the middle-of-the-road are all that can be expected of them. Independent thinking does not submit to bureaucratic edicts, originality does not follow "public policies," integrity does not petition for a license, heroism is not fostered by fear, creative genius is not summoned forth at the point of a gun. [bold added]

Even if all of Trump's monkeying around were confined to just taxes, the damage even that has done to the ability of businessmen to plan ahead has been impressive.

The crisis comes not from the fact that businessmen don't want to work under Trump's policies or with his style of governing; it's that they can't.

I'll draw an interesting parallel from one last bit on manufacturing I encountered this morning. According to a poll:

"America would be better off if more people worked in manufacturing."

• 80% of Americans agree
• 20% disagree

"I would be better off if I worked in a factory."

• 25% of Americans agree
• 73% disagree
• 2% currently work in a factory

To the degree anyone still imagines Trump is good on the economy, they are failing to see things the way a businessman does in the same way that they like the idea of having more factories until they are asked if they want one of those cruddy jobs.

The situation Trump is creating for them might be summed up in a hypothetical poll question: Would you be more likely to make a large purchase if someone could make wild changes to your monthly expenses and seemed likely to do so often, and for little reason?

-- CAV

Four Random Things

A Friday Hodgepodge

The good news: My daughter made the honor roll again! The bad news: It's out the door sharpish for the school's ceremony ahead of a busy day, so I need to spit something out quickly. Short and sweet are the words...

1. Via Geekpress is an annotated list of the 100 best sci-fi films of all time.

2. In an effort to foster a closer connection between the youth and adults in his community, Eri Miyahara created a trading card game based on middle-aged men there, and it took off to the point that one man, an "All-Rounder" in the game, is having to autograph his cards.

3. Ahead of a trip, my wife reminded me of the apparently broken back seatbelt in her car, which we were planning to drive. Luckily the good folks at ARC Driver saved me from having to waste even the time to visit a repair shop.

Their short video on how to unlock a locked seatbelt retractor showed me how to fix it and less than a minute later, the seatbelt was back to normal.

4. This is definitely not in the category of news you can use, but it is an interesting read. A British diplomat, who volunteered for a post there, explains how to survive 3 years in North Korea as a foreigner.

-- CAV

Psychological Distance From a Question

At Ask a Manager, I encountered a simple, memorable example (Item 3) of someone -- simply by asking a question of another -- becoming aware of a good option he was blinding himself to.

The writer had an unexpected business opportunity with a firm whose board included someone from his long-ago romantic past, and with whom he had parted ways acrimoniously, albeit drama-free.

Out of courtesy, the writer wanted to reconnect with his ex and offer to bow out altogether, but he dreaded the prospect:

I don't want to show up and ambush my ex, and it would be disingenuous for me to pretend I don't have a connection to this company. The respectful and professional thing to do is to reach out to the ex directly and ... reconnect somehow, right? The problem is the thought of even getting coffee with this person fills me with dread and anxiety. I am quite content to never see them again. At the same time, the idea that we could be on speaking terms if we run into each other again would ultimately be a relief...

The beginning of Alison Green's reply was This doesn't require coffee!

Wait. What? I thought. The answer, to use email, was so obvious to me that the bit about coffee hadn't registered. I was a little bit nonplussed until I reread the question.

I bet this guy heaved a sigh of relief before laughing at how fixated he'd been on an awkward meeting over coffee.

The lesson here is that it's often helpful to ask someone else a question, no matter how simple it might look to others, when one is stuck. The answer won't always be so simple, of course, but it can be.

The good news is that people simply needing the aid of another person's perspective will often get a pleasant surprise upon hearing the answer.

-- CAV